What would you do if you were stuck inside a closed store for an hour and a half with a waning smartphone battery and nothing to do while you wait to be rescued? While some of us would surely finally live out some kind of supermarket sweep fantasy, one woman marooned in a closed CVS behaved herself, taking a selfie and still paying for her gummy vitamins at the end of the ordeal. [More]
Pharma Medicine
Someone Sent $270K Worth Of Pot To The Wrong Clothing Store
By 11.19.14
I’ve never mailed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marijuana to anyone, but if I were going to do it, I’d at least make sure that it was properly addressed. But that’s apparently not the case for whomever sent 90 pounds of pot to one Philly-area clothing store over the course of two days. [More]
Quiz Results: Most People Confused How To Write Names Of Walmart, Popeyes, Lowe’s
By 11.11.14
Last week, we quizzed readers on the correct way to write the names of several retail businesses that abuse or play with punctuation. An awful lot of you gave it a shot and some of you did very well, but the results show that there is a lot of confusion out there for some of the country’s biggest retail brands. [More]
Why Did CVS & Rite-Aid Stop Taking Apple Pay?
By 10.27.14
After nearly a week of accepting payment via the recently launched Apple Pay system, both CVS and Rite-Aid suddenly stopped offering this option to shoppers over the weekend. And neither retailer is giving a reason why, though it appears to be part of a retail-industry effort to eventually roll out its own payment system. [More]
Survey: Overwhelming Majority Of U.S. Doctors Seeing Patients With Drug-Resistant Illnesses
By 10.23.14
While the pharmaceuticals industry and some livestock farmers and veterinarians still contend that there isn’t yet definitive proof that the overuse of antibiotics is leading to the development and spread of drug-resistant bacteria, a new survey of American doctors found that there is nearly universal concern among doctors about this issue, and that many physicians have treated patients with drug-resistant infections in just the last year. [More]
Lone Bear Cub Seals His Fate To Forever Live Among Humans After Strolling Through Rite Aid
By 10.22.14
Listen, denizens of the animal kingdom: I know it looks like we humans have got it made, what with large roofed structures filled with food and other sundries a wild creature might want to get into. But beware, little bears, because once you stroll through a Rite Aid, you can never go back to the wild. [More]
Walgreens Gives Teen Wrong Prescription, Shrugs
By 10.20.14
It’s bad enough that a Michigan Walgreens pharmacy gave a 14-year-old customer someone else’s prescription, but the teen’s family says the drugstore chain made the situation much worse by demanding that the family go out of pocket to finally obtain the correct drug. [More]
FedEx Delivery Mistake Leads To Huge Drug Bust
By 10.16.14
If my neighbor accidentally gets my FedEx or UPS package, the worst that could happen is they find out about my pedestrian reading tastes or that I might order too many video games. Then again, no one is shipping me parcels full of illegal drugs. [More]
9 Things You Need To Know From Frontline Investigation Of Antibiotics & Animals
By 10.15.14
Last night, PBS’ Frontline aired a report on the huge amount of antibiotics that farmers pump into animal feed and the effects that this practice has on the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs that kill thousands of Americans and make millions more sick every year. [More]
CVS To Pay $225K For Misleading Packaging On Store-Brand Products
By 10.6.14
Isn’t it great when you buy a box that looks like it contains a large jar of face cream only to find out that what’s inside is much smaller than you’d expected? Drugstore megachain CVS recently agreed to pay $225,000 to settle allegations in California that it tweaked its packaging on nearly a dozen store-brand products to trick customers into thinking they were getting more than they really were. [More]
FDA: Use Of Vital Human Antibiotics In Animals Increased 16% In 3 Years
By 10.2.14
Even as a growing number of people — from consumers to scientists to physicians — expressed concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed, a new FDA report shows that farmers continued adding more drugs to their animals’ diets, and that almost every one of those antibiotics was purchased and administered without a prescription. [More]
Tyson Decides To Feed Slightly Fewer Drugs To Its Chickens
By 10.1.14
When it comes to reducing the enormous amount of antibiotics being fed to animals solely for growth-promotion, just about any news is good news. So we welcome today’s announcement from Tyson that it will cease using antibiotics in its hatcheries, but still have concerns about the drugs being fed to birds once they leave the hatchery. [More]
Viagra Airing TV Ads Targeted At Women For The First Time
By 9.30.14
While Viagra is a medication taken for men, they’re not the only ones who could benefit from its use. The makers of the erectile dysfunction treatment have figured out that women are a valuable marketing asset, what with being half of a man-woman horizontal tango, and as such, have started aiming ads at the female of the species for the first time ever. [More]
California Governor Vetoes Weak-Kneed Antibiotics Bill
By 9.30.14
Considering that 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used on farm animals, and that most of those drugs are used primarily for growth promotion, you’d think we’d be happy to see a state like California introduce legislation that appears to ban the use of antibiotics to get fatter cows, pigs, and chickens. But it’s what that bill doesn’t do that has us concerned, and why California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed it. [More]
CVS Collects Erroneous Birth Control Copays, Will Issue Refunds
By 9.26.14
Pharmacy chain CVS charged about 11,000 customers who have health insurance small copays when they picked up some recent prescriptions. What’s wrong with that? Those prescriptions were for generic contraceptive pills, which should be dispensed with no copay at all under the federal Affordable Care Act. Now those customers are due a refund. [More]
Drug Ring Bust Exposes Food Truck Selling Tacos With A Side Of Meth
By 9.23.14
It’s no Los Pollos Hermanos, but Mexican food and methamphetamines have met once again, this time outside the fictional bounds of Breaking Bad, on a taco truck in Denver. Of 17 people there recently indicted on charges related to trafficking/selling meth, one was accused of shilling meth right from the taco truck where she worked. [More]
White House Acknowledges Over-Use Of Antibiotics In Farm Animals, Shrugs
By 9.18.14
Last year, the FDA released voluntary guidance for the pharmaceutical industry, which sells 80% of all antibiotics in the U.S. to farmers, primarily because they promote growth in animals. That guidance asked drug companies to please stop selling antibiotics for that purpose, but allows them to keep selling just as many drugs for “disease prevention,” even though it’s been proven that continuous, low-dose use of antibiotics renders their medical use less effective and contributes to the development of drug-resistant pathogens. Today, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a report that some had hoped would recommend the FDA take a harder line on this issue. Those people are probably a bit disappointed. [More]
Report Shows Farmers’ Indiscriminate Use Of Antibiotics In Chicken Feed
By 9.15.14
While the medical community and public health advocates continue to call on the FDA to better regulate the widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed, farmers and pharmaceutical companies try to claim that these drugs are primarily being used for disease prevention and that their use doesn’t cross over into humans. But a new investigative report from Reuters calls into question a number of statements made by the nation’s largest poultry farmers. [More]
